


Faceless

by hackson_hatsoff



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 11:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hackson_hatsoff/pseuds/hackson_hatsoff
Summary: Whether she meant for him to know or not, McCree learns that the hacker is more than a shadow.





	Faceless

One of the best damn things about Mexico for McCree, aside from not feeling so entirely out of place when he wore his hat, boots, and serape, was how warm it stayed. Even nearing winter, most of the country remained a comfortable temperature, something a more heat-suited man like him could appreciate. 

Today, the surprising amount of people walking the streets added to that warmth. Halloween just passed and he saw more than a few skeletons and skulls decorating pottery, jewelry, and food on vendors’ tables but all the vibrant colors and flowers didn’t really shout ‘spooky’ to him. He’d only been in Mexico a few times prior to the previous year, so he knew maybe he’d ought to have known more about what was going on but couldn’t seem to recall. 

As he walked down the main plaza and continued on to a side street that would lead him to his destination, McCree bumped into the person he’d been on his way to visit. 

“Oh, it’s you.” 

It still felt a bit strange to see the woman outside of her normal clothing. Despite the warm weather, she wore a thin windbreaker and torn jeans, hair tied back in a loose tail, more than likely hiding the augmentations along the back of her head. In one hand, she held a bag and in the other, held a bunch of those bright flowers he’d seen everywhere.

“Sombra, whatta surprise bumpin’ into you.” 

Rolling her eyes, Sombra continued walking past McCree, obviously catching his lie. “Please. The only reason you stop by here anymore is because you want to find me.” 

He couldn’t argue with her there. He started following her, seeing as how he’d already found her and there was no reason to head out so quickly. If she had any objections to him following her, she made no move to voice them. He walked with her in somewhat comfortable, if not oblivious silence, letting the sounds of the busy streets around them fill the otherwise quiet air. 

It hadn’t been long that he’d known her - perhaps a year, at the most? Even then, their meetings were spotty. He’d met her one evening at Calaveras, a bar in Castillo and from there their reunions were mostly incidental, though not unwelcome. She made for excellent drinking company and McCree was never one to deny the company of a lovely lady, even as one with such an interesting choice of style; where she was glowing wires, nimble curves, and an electric gaze, he was old fashioned sense, hard angles, and tired eyes. A contrast by all means, though in spirit, he almost felt a kindred spirit at times, from the way she spoke and carried herself. A mysterious woman, willingly cast in shadows, a woman he sometimes questioned trusting. 

She’d been right - if he did pass into Mexico, he always found himself stopping by Castillo, just to see if he’d get a chance to meet with her again. He was a loner but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate a good conversation now and again. Though at the moment, it seemed a conversation was the last thing on Sombra’s mind.

“Seems a little busy. Anything going on?” McCree asked, now curious as to what the commotion in town was about. “Keep seein’ all these skeletons everywhere. Ain’t it a bit late for Halloween?”

Sombra clicked her tongue in clear disapproval. “It’s not Halloween.” Her eyes remained focused on the road they walked on. “This is the last day of a three-day holiday, _Día de Muertos_.” 

It sounded familiar to McCree - _Día de Muertos_? “Ah, ‘Day of the Dead’?” He knew he’d heard it before, just not very often. “What is it y’all are celebrating?” 

Sighing, she began walking faster, only looking up briefly to the sky above. “It’s a time where Mexicans remember and pray for their dead loved ones.” 

He nodded. “But I’m guessin’ it’s all in positive spirit - looks lively for a holiday about the dead.” 

“It’s a time of remembrance, not mourning. Enough of that happens when the person actually dies,” Sombra commented flatly. 

“True ‘nough. Though if ya don’t mind me sayin’, y'never struck me as the type to celebrate…well, any holiday,” McCree admitted, treading lightly. It was true - she always appeared much too busy or generally disinterested beyond her own goals. 

She stayed quiet after that, having no retort ready for him. Still, he followed her, even if he had to take longer strides to match her quick pace. The silence between them made McCree uncomfortable, and he opened his mouth, ready to apologize for his earlier comment until he heard her mumble her answer.

“I never wanted to.”

“But now you do?”

“Yes.” 

McCree said nothing after that, her curt responses telling him all he needed to know about the amount of patience she seemingly had left. Still, she made no move to respond as he followed, and as he had no where else to go at the moment, he continued, realizing the further they walked, the quieter it became. Once they passed a gate, he noted that they’d left the town and Sombra lead them off the road onto a dirt trail that wound up toward a large hill. Silently, he tread after her, keeping his exhaustion and curiosity quiet. Sombra seemed eerily transfixed and despite never having seen her like that, it was also intriguing. 

Finally reaching the top, unperturbed, Sombra continued forward while McCree buckled at the amount of energy it took out of him to climb the trail. When he caught his breath, he raised his head, finding Sombra standing in front of what appeared to be a large marble monument. He approached, studying the slab. It looked smooth at first but upon closer inspection, dust, weathered edges, and a chipped here-and-there surface revealed a clearer image - this monument had quite a few years standing at the top of the hill and without any attention. 

He stretched his neck back, looking toward the top of the slab of stone. He recognized a few letters and words but with its words obviously carved in Spanish, he could only understand so much. The rest underneath the larger letters were smaller - names, probably. But they were so…tiny - there had to have been thousands of names. He returned his gaze to Sombra who continued to stare at the monument.

“Why’re you here?” was the question that came out. Not that the lonely stone atop the hill didn’t remind him a lot of her own nature but it seemed too out of place for Sombra. 

Instead of answering, Sombra moved, walking away and stopping just short of the hill’s edge. 

“ _Ven_ , McCree. _Mira_.”

It was the first thing she’d said to him in over an hour and he wasn’t about to ignore her. He walked over, stopping next to her and watched as she rose her hand, pointing outward, beyond the top of the hill they stood on. McCree turned his head to follow her pointing, eyes instantly attracted to the batches of glowing orange light down below. Some batches were tiny, others large and seemed to stretch in all directions, continuing to spread whether it inclined upward or down a slope.

“Cemeteries,” Sombra said, answering his unspoken question. “It’s where people actually celebrate Day of the Dead. Or at least, where they’d rather celebrate it.” 

Before he could ask her what she meant by that, she sighed, folding her arms. “Not all of México celebrated this holiday in the past. It was more of an indigenous thing, celebrated mostly in the central and southern parts of the country, until it started gaining more relevance. Then…” 

She shrugged, a passive look on her face, though the bottom lids of her eyes gave small twitches. “After the Omnic Crisis, it just sort of became customary and expected for everyone, no matter where, to celebrate it.” Sombra turned back toward the monument, looking at it from where she stood. 

“There’s monuments like these all over México. There were so many dead when the omnics attacked…too many to keep proper track of, too many to bury. Most, if not all bodies were burned.”

McCree watched Sombra’s face as she spoke of the Crisis - something that everyone in the world had in common. No emotions flickered even for a second over her expression though her eyes remained locked onto the monument, like if she stopped looking, it’d shatter and disappear before her very eyes. 

“That’s a lot of names,” McCree finally said, letting his own gaze sweep over the tiny print of the names of the deceased, those unlucky enough to not get a proper burial. “There one like this in every state?”

“Municipals,” Sombra corrected, not tearing her stare away. “This one just covers Dorado, Castillo, and a few neighboring towns.” 

They didn’t call it a crisis for nothing, McCree thought darkly as the chipped and faded names stared back at him, as if calling out to him to be read - to be remembered. 

Sombra approached the stone, letting one hand lay flat against the surface. “No one ever visits these. It’s like they’re forgotten - they want to forget what happened. They want to remember only the good, not the bad that seems to outweigh it.” With an exhale through her nose, she shook her head. “But everyone only remembers the remembered. These, without faces,” she mumbled, trailing her hand across the grooves of carved names. “…they’re forgotten, bodies cast aside like kindle for a fire.” Her hand suddenly stopped, toward the center of slab, her passive expression faltering only briefly. “…forgotten like those left behind.” 

Kneeling, Sombra slipped the bag she had on her arm off, placing it gently on the ground. Reaching inside, she revealed two candles, setting them just in front of the stone, a space apart, then moved to arrange the marigolds around the candles, leaving that space in the middle bare. When she reached into her bag again, she pulled out two framed pictures.

McCree couldn’t make it out very well, what with the setting sun behind them and the photos themselves looked pixelated, like they’d been blown up to fit the frame. In either frame was a picture of a man and a woman, no smiles, nothing fancy to speak of. Though he swore there was something familiar about both of them. 

Sombra fixed the frames into the center, just beside the flowers and candles. Reaching back into the bag, she pulled out a small bag of what appeared to be wrapped tamales and a bottle of tequila. 

“I don’t know what they’d like, so sometimes you just go with what’s popular,” Sombra said quietly, putting the items just to the sides of the pictures. She began patting her pockets, along with her entire person, searching for something. 

Realizing what that something was, he drew his own lighter. McCree approached from the side, kneeling down to light the candles before slowly moving back. Sombra cast him a small glance over her shoulder, a quick lock of their eyes and brief nod conveyed her thanks. The faint light flickered over Sombra’s face, but as always, her expression was as unreadable as the cocky grin she usually had in its place. 

He looked to the photos once again and took off his hat, placing it over his chest as they stood in silence. It didn’t take very long to figure out who those people were and it didn’t seem entirely appropriate to start asking questions yet. The breeze around them brought the scent of the gulf and marigolds. 

“This is a nice smell,” she commented, eyes still focused on the photos. “It took years for the stink of smoke to finally disappear.” 

Seemed no matter what, being a witness to such a level of destruction was what every human being still alive on this planet had in common. 

“This your first time seein’ em?” he asked.

“I had to dig for them. Old government archives. These were the only ones intact that I could find.” 

McCree moved a bit closer, studying everything: the memorial, the small shrine Sombra set up, but mostly, the woman herself. Her face passive but her eyes betrayed her. He liked to think that he could read people, sometimes a bit too well. 

“It’s alright to miss ‘em,” he offered. 

“Miss them?” A breathy, quiet laugh left Sombra. “I didn’t even know them. Maybe it’s better this way - I’m sure we’d have driven each other insane. I don’t need things holding me back.” She shrugged. “Everyone else does, this,” she said, emphasizing the shrine with a gesturing of her finger. “Might as well do it, too.” 

Except the twitch in her brows, the bob in her throat as she swallowed, they didn’t go unnoticed by McCree. And for a moment, it was him in her place, ten years old, standing in a red, dusty cemetery in front of a fresh headstone, wondering what awful surprise the world was going to bring him next and wishing he was at home again.

And then there was a small girl, too young to witness death but having lived through too much of it. That little girl refused to cry but her fists clenched tightly, staring at names of people who should have been there with her. The little girl faded away, leaving a shadow in its place, only to be illuminated by the orange glow of candles, revealing a woman - a woman with lapis eyes that still refused to cry. 

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

Her voice broke his thoughts and he realized he had been staring, though it was like he’d been dreaming, startling him a bit with his own thoughts. “Uh, nothin’. Sorry ‘bout that.”

Sombra stared at him a bit longer before shaking her head and then stood, stretching and sighing, overlooking the hill toward the sun that would completely set. “It’s getting late. You want to get a drink or something?” 

McCree stepped aside as Sombra moved past him and she continued. “Today’s about the dead but we’re still alive. That seems like something worth celebrating.” 

He huffed, grinning and placed his hat back on, lodging it firmly back into place. “Now that’s somethin’ I can drink to.”

He’d followed a shadow up that trail but couldn’t help but wonder if who he followed down was the person it’d been hiding all along.


End file.
